Saturday, January 23, 2016

Revival of ‘Enemy of the People’ and Other Odious Soviet Terms Threatens Russia, Nazaccent Warns

Paul
Goble

Staunton, January 23 – The revival
of odious Soviet terms like “enemy of the people” and the legitimation of them
because of their use by Ramzan Kadyrov and others represents a threat to Russia
because it promotes the kind of stereotypical thinking that will divide Russia
and threaten its future, according to the Guild of Inter-Ethnic Journalism.

“The reincarnation of [such]
forgotten terms,” the editors of its media project. Nazaccent.ru say, only encourages
people to identify entire peoples as “’wild’” or “’venal,’” a trend that does
nothing to promote “the consolidation of society.” Indeed, they say, “everyone
loses” (nazaccent.ru/content/19147-o-vragah-naroda.html).

The harshness of such expressions “is
a sign of the building up of dissatisfaction, the inability to negotiate or to
find a compromise. This is a dangerous place in which we in our history more
than once have entered and … it undermined the entire world,” the specialists
on ethnic issues continue.

“Terms like ‘enemy of the people,’ ‘shame
of the country,’ and others like them were in widespread use beginning in the
1920s until the middle of the last century.They accompanied and to a certain extent justified the most horrific
events connected with the self-destruction of our Russian nation: a civil war,
political repressions and deportations.”

Once people begin to call some of
their fellow citizens “enemies” that means that “it isn’t necessary to speak
with them but only destroy them.” And to the extent that happens, society very
quickly “’matures’” to the point that it will be ready to view entire peoples
as “’hostile’” and subject them to forced resettlement or make them into second
class citizens.

Any Chechen should be aware of this
given that his nation was one of the 12 peoples of the USSR which were declared
to be “’bad,’” the editors say.And thus
the question arises: Is this the only way to cope with the naturally occurring
differences within Russian society? Or would it not be better to “leave these
dangerous phrases on the shelf of history?”